It just keep getting better...

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Over the weekend, I went down to Tokyo to attend a Bday party of a great pal. The first thing that I realised that did surprise me was that the air smelled different. Tokyo was a place which I had very much wanted to move to but somehow the same air, the same scent that I had sucked into my lungs was very different this time round.

Then I began to feel a certain sense of attachment to Nagano, the vast space, the mountains, the snow and the scenery till I began to become a little apprehensive of Tokyo, which used to be a place that I really really loved. People change I guess and so are my taste, style and other functional sensory triggers.

At the party, I met more amazing people and suddenly everyone, the Japanese people in particular seemed to speak English, I meant really really good English. Nothing like in Nagano...but I felt foreign since I was so used to being in the all Japanese environment. These amazing people soon provided decent lens food for my 5D with the Sig 50mm. Most of them had FB which of course was a huge blessing so the pictures are all up. Played Crysis, Call of Duty 4, and a little Bioshock on my pal's comp and realised how I had been left in the stone ages. Nonetheless, though centuries late since the era of Half Life 2 and Counter Strike, Crysis still packed a huge punch which left me trading sleep for hours of non-stop action in my drunken stupor.

Over the course of the weekend, I had more ales (GOSH I am huge sucker for ales) and stouts than I ever did in Nagano. Then early into Sunday morning, I went to Tsukiji hoping to catch some nice shutter chance but was smashed to find out that the famous fish market was closed on Sundays. The epic failure wasn't all that bad since I hardly had a winked fom Saturday's nite booze parade and hours of Crysis action. Went to a nearby 24 hour sushi shop and had 1 of the most heavenly piece of God's sushi, the 大トロ (Oo Toro) of the Blue Fin Tuna. No pictures but the description are as follows. Imagine a slab of marbled textured fish meat that looked like a piece of Kobe beef on a luke warm fragrant sushi rice entering your mouth. The very moment you start to chew on it, the piece of fish meat literally DISOLVE slowly releasing the fatty taste of the tuna spreading to all the empty sections of your mouth. I swore I really didn't want to swallow that half saliva-digested pile in my mouth.

I got back to Nagano on early Sunday morning before 10 am and slept all the way till Monday morning with a spliting headache. Panadols solved everything and then it was back to work which I had already thrown in the half fuck attitude. The kids of the 6th grade pissed me off beyond my reasonable limit and I just smiled and told the home room teacher that I was very much done with that class and would not want to attend the last class on Mar 8th. Had a slight conversation with the home room teacher only to find out that he was the ham between the 2 pieces of bread. The forces of shitty-deserved-to-be-shot snobbish parents of 2 of the brats had the home room teacher's head on the platter. In other words, he had to stomach all the shits from these brats or risk losing his job. I understood his plight and had a compromise solution in the end.

Tuesday, took half a day off to submit my VISA application for the new job. Was told that it was too early and lacking a couple of documents. Came back and prepared the necessary documents for the next visit. Then went online to check on the auction status of a second hand Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED dedicated 35mm film scanner that Master B had recommended. Won the auction in the end hovering around the SGD$1,200 range which was still a steal considering the brand new version above SGD$3,000. Now all I have to do is to sell of the crappy Made in Terrorist Land Epson scanner.

Today came to school looking all good, checking the net for more shopping stuffs and found a 1st hand G Shock Protector for the DW/GW 5000/5600 series of watches. Apparently these hard to find protectors were no longer being produced by Casio and were being very much sought after by many collectors. I myself had been looking for one for a while so that pretty much made my day.

Will try to do a private photoshoot of my limited edition Made in Japan Casio G Shock GW-5000B 1JR with the protector soon.

Unexpected but I do take it as a compliment

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Yesterday, mid week, went out to dinner supposedly with my benefactor who introduced me the opening to the new job that I eventually got it. The small cosy restaurant was one of the better ones around here since I pretty much know the staffs, owner and his wife.

Then my benefactor brought 2 oher friends along who 1 of them I knew. Now I was planted in such a setting that I was the only male amongst 3 females who will be my co-workers in April. Not a bad start since I already know 2 of them and probably a 3rd one by the end of the night. Wacky as usual, we broke into the uncanny conversations littered with weird Japanese and English which often ended with laughters. While the entire stint was going on, I could hear my inner thoughts giving an assurance of approval even before I actually start working in Apr...I was beginning to like every second and every advancement into the future pertaining to my new job, new friends and new environment.

Thru the conversations, I learned that my immediate Boss, the very same guy who hired me had a huge impression of me since the very first interview that I went. Somehow it was like he was already determined to hire me after the first meeting but just wanted to confirm my personality as to whether I was outgoing and able to handle "people" situations. Much to my astonishment, the very first impression that became my truimph card was my appearence. Yeah the one with the goatee and messed up hairdo...because these girls here were telling me that "The Boss" went around telling everyone how "cute" I was and it would be a great addition to the company specifically his photography department.

Immediately 2 questions popped into my head...1. Presentable gentlemen or young gentlemen are not present in the current work place. 2. "The Boss" was gay. But on further probing, well I can put the second question down since "The Boss" was a married man. So investigating further on the 1st question, why was my appearence taken into consideration on the 1st interview? Though no valid answers supported with facts surfaced by the end of the night, I kinda concluded after having a slight "tour" of the compounds, abruptly meeting the rest of the potential crew during my 1st interview, that looks or rather appearence was of paramount importance in a service oriented industry where high net worth figures would stroll in from the neighbouring areas. Besides, if I do get hired, I would probably be the 1st foreigner, tri-lingual photographer who can pull of in the fashion department as well as being blessed (Thks Mummy and Daddy) with presentable appearence. And that was definitely how I saw it but apparently my name had began to spread within the new place of employment and everyone seems to want to catch a glimpse of me and possibly evaluate how "cute" I was against The Boss's allegations. I forsee a long hard road ahead to keep up with these impressions.

In my almost 1.5 decades of existence, I had never once looked at myself in the mirror and say, "Oh boy, what a beautiful face you have." Looking at the aged photos, I realised that my appearence had indeed changed from a fat pugsy outcast, to someone who could blend into fake fascade environment. Though it might sound weird but it seemed that since the day I decided to be a devoted advocate to the Japanese fellowship, my style and appearence did evolve according to my mentality. Some credit did went to my ex Japanese GF without a doubt to boost my confidence in the style department to fit into where I had wanted to be. Since I became a teen, I had always wanted to be different so that I could fit in with the attention I wanted. I wanted attention, I wanted to be different and I wanted to have a following. Though it took a little while before I had a following, everything did pay off in the end. Not bad at all looking back at how far I had come...

Oh on a side note before I forget, my new work place will have a 70 - 30 ratio of young applicable females to guys so hopefully some sparks could start flying since I am not getting any younger and EVERYONE around me seems to propose, get married, have kids and I am still here left on the shelf collecting unwanted dust. At least I want a nice set of photos before wrinkles kill my self esteem. Yes I am vain... :p

Something gained and something lost...bloody hell!

- Never Stop Dreaming -

After embarking on the life changing delivery mission, I found that my winter mitts were missing in action. Searched high and low, in and out, the house and the car and nothing...not even a trace or a speck of dust trail. *Sob* *Sob* Those mitts had kept me warm for 2 seasons and I really like them... *Sob* *Sob* And now they are lost and I had the slightest idea where I lost them. I was wondering, these mitts were big and if I had dropped them, I would have definitely felt or seen it. Sadly, they had vanished miraculously and nothing seems to come out useful from my head. *Sigh* So I went online and purchased another set of mitts...

The only satisfaction I got outta "this strange ordeal" (Edison Chen`s infamous quote) was that I got to hear mi voice which had me dancing in delight. Then the replacement of the Arc Teryx Alpha came in the post, and finally to top it off, I found a used Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED which Master B put forth as "Beat until die also won't sell" film scanner...things are working out slowly but the lost of my beloved mitts did sour my soul.

This coming Friday, I had already gotten an approval from the vice principal to flee the school after lunch on certain excuses but don't bother asking me since I won't tell :p There after, I will head to Shinjuku to meet up with D and have a huge Bday party in Roppongi...Definitely looking forward since I will be hauling my camera down!

Yeah it seems like there are always two sides of the coin so something gained will usually mean something lost like the ancient barter trade of exchange. But sometimes in monetary forms, like how the stupid tax that I had paid in excess, took a little too long to be refunded back to me which I would have easily factored in opportunity cost. In the end, I got it back only to hand it out immediately for another tax, the Residence Tax (Shiminzei)

The Sacred Delivery Mission Completed!

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Valentine's Day have a very different approach, meaning and significance here in Japan but Wiki will give you a more detailed information. And in my love career, I had only given out 2 bouquets of flowers to 2 different lady which of course makes them reigned supreme over every other lady that I have come to known. As I grew older, not necessary wiser, I found that I became rather cautious on extravagant spending. The reason is because I want to be able to "invest" in the right one than just throwing away money blindly to sinister charities like those in SG.

Many years went by, not a spark, not even any form of thermal energy from anyone so I remained cold further isolated by each winter. Then something happened late last year towards the end of the year. Strange but credible if you want to believe, things changed for the better...I found a new job, all hyped up...looking forward to being able to realise yet another dream, the S15 after 10 odd years and a new crash pad, etc. I could see the turn of events one after another showering like holy presents from God...then I began to sneak back into the chilly crevices doubting all these sudden stroke of good faith. I began to doubt certain things and prepare myself incase the tide turn on me. Amidst all these mental confusions, there was one, a very very significant one that seems to shackle me with fear and I tremble with each step, each move, each decision because every minute forward into the future could spell a cruel and disturbing plunge into darkness. I am walking on a thin line with only uncertainties and questions that I couldn't answer by myself...

February 13th, in the year 2010...it was a Saturday and after careful considerations, I decided to heed an advice of a friend, to deliver a sweet package to mi. It was one of the longest journey in my life that simply robbed me of at least 2 years of useful brain cells and youth. Then entire solitary journey thru the snowy passes had me messed up with the voices of the angel and the devil on each shoulder. It was a dangerous mental journey to realise certain things that could very well change my life forever.



Usually it would had been the highway but to save on cost, I decided to take a longer but free route instead and these were some of the mountain passes that I sneakily "drifted" in practice to get there.



Along the way the new fresh snow found the bare canopy of the coniferous pines fine resting places so I couldn't resist it too and whipped out my 5D.

Eventhough I have been to this place numerous times over the last 1000 odd days, sadly only in the deep of winter. Each time I drove home, I really wished I was the passenger instead because each sunset that greeted me was different and yet similarly beautiful. On this day, I reached the designated place, walked up a small uphill path of white, delivered a sweet package and felt my heart skipped a couple of beats when one of God's angel decided to drop me a smile before I savored this mind fuel, the same very one which started the entire chain of fusion and fission in my emotional well being.


This was the very thing, the one "potent" cuppa caffine that altered my life forever.


Then having completed my mission, it was time I departed home before darkenss catches on...but going back down on the same snowy path, I found myself walking into a mental hallucination while staring at the diamond dust sprinkling thru the trees against the sun. My camera couldn't do anything to capture those nano flakes and this was the best I got, with the sun in a tiny star shaped.

Back into the car, I travelled on the all so familiar road back before deciding to do an insane stunt in the name of photography. Sometimes, the most beautiful pictures requires the photographer to venture into the most extreme corners of the earth, this was once instance which I could totally relate to that statement. The pavement on both sides of the bridge was covered in at least more than 1 meter of dirty slushy snow. To get the following shots, I sank into the snow despite not having appropriate gear and waddled thru with insane effort and the stares from every single driver passing that bridge. Fixed the tripod into the snow and fired away...A small portion of guts have to be credited to the amazing spirit that day for accomplishing the sacred delivery mission which even granted me an audience with the "queen". I am not that crazy as you think but if you could understand my thinking proccess or in the same plight as me at that time, you would probably have done the same.



These 2 are my favorite shot of the day...

Picture updates...

- Never Stop Dreaming -

More late picture updates since it's a known hassle to upload pictures to blogger. These are about 3 weeks old on Facebook but still eagering trying to gain my attention while sitting on the desktop.



This gentleman speaks amazing English for a Japanese and that's because he was abroad in the states for some good period of time. Met him at a party and found out that he is a DJ by the accronym Dice at a loacl town. Nice chap, laid back and funny which went pretty well with my eccentric nature. Oh yeah, that was his bday party sometime in late Jan and he is single and have a nice pension business in the snowy regions, run by his family.


These are my friends who are also hair stylist that are on the top of the awesome scale...and indeed the lighting would suggest that this was taken at Dice bday party as well.


Saturday, 6th Feb...was laying low to avoid monetary radar detection but nonetheless, the splendid weather shoved me outta the house for some pictures. The wintery white washout coupled with the strong chilly winds paved a perfect setting for some natural soft touch to it. Stucked the 5D on the tripod and waited for the shutter to trip while listening to the trembling collision of my teeth. My School framed...!


The path leading to my soon-to-be-goodbye-after-3-years school wasn't too bad either so snapped!


Couldn't help falling in love with the reflections behind the dirty school glass and there I wondered why the hell I couldn't and could never understand the strange person I see in every reflections.


Still on Saturday, went "shopping" for "eye candies" and found these 2 cute high school girls who agreed to have their pictures taken by some weird stranger. If chance permits, I might have more of them in the future...potential clients :p

When the rev roars

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Somehow my hopes of obtaining the S15 seems to fade slowly each day...I seemed to have found a different form of diversion from brooding over the S15. Instead, the mix of snow, slush and sleet made way for a perfect environment to push the tiny manual Suzuki to the limits. Running without a RPM meter, I can only guage the appropriate gear by the sound of the rev and the speed. Numerous bends, uphills and downhills to practice and yesterday, was a public holiday here in Japan.

Went snowboarding in Shiga Kogen which wasn't a bad place but the rain days before literally destroyed the prestine snow. The grounds were hard and falling was a bad experience. But as the day proceeded, sleet and rain stormed in and the surface layer of snow began to soften up to create a slushy and slippery surface. I began to ride bigger and bigger with hopes of getting my moo neh's worth. Did some ramps, jumps but nothing too insane since today I still have to work. A good day of snowboarding indeed and heading home in the toy car was limited to speeds below 90km/h. Anything above that, the toy car would vibrate and handling would become problematic. Besides it was snowing so bad in the evening, everyone else was doing slower on the highways.

Sending my friend back, I took to the snow covered roads for a little fun. Entering a regular bend, making a left or right turn, etc. All I had to do was to down shift and brake lightly since braking a little harder would send the tail of the car sliding out. Yeah, down shift and brake lightly without the tail sliding, enter the bend at a comfortable speed. Once I hit the apex, I would floor the pedal and this would send the tail sliding out which initiated a drift. The amount of drift could simply be controlled by the amount of gas floored. Because traction was so bad, counter steering was relatively tricky but after a couple of tries, everyone should be able to do it. I was constantly keeping the gear in 2nd thru the corner drifts and playing with the amount of gas and counter steering. 3rd was not advisable at speeds below 40km/h since there simply wasn't enuff torque to lose traction. Then I found a nice wide dual carriage way in the back roads and did a couple of donuts before continuing the drift practice. Uphill was definitely easier to drift since downhill was more tricky and more proned to losing control due to gravity.

Well I am using a NA, un-tuned and under-powered manual 4WD car so drifting was relatively easy to manage. I wouldn't say the same for 2 litre turbo FRs since I have never driven one.

Cash, hard cold CASH!

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Apparently my dreams for riding in a nice white S15 will not go thru anytime soon. That's because Japan has some pretty strict rules for granting loans to foreigners with an expiry date on their visa(s). Perfectly understandable since if we leave Japan, the banks will be in deep shit expanding more resources hunting down the boat jumpers.

There are of course alternatives like going to some Yuk(s) run financing company like Ah Long Pte Ltd in Singapore where they impose an exorbitant interest rate just to get your business done "legitimately". I was planing to finance the new baby thru a 2 year loan so that I don't tie up my limited pot of cash all in it but...from the way I see it now, there's probably no other alternative than to drop hard cold cash on the car, literally like a bag, a suitcase, a paper bag, etc of nicely bundled, nicely ironed CASH!

5 more weeks and I will be a free man...moving to my new place, getting all hyped up for my friends, my family to come visit me and of course starting a new life in a new job in photography. My dreams for the S15 may be dashed at the moment, I am not all destroyed...it's only a matter of storing up enuff power to Hadoken it all. We will see how it goes...

Days in schools especially Elementary schools are more like "Whatever" each week I visit them. Simply because I have almost no motivation at all to continue entertaining those long days when I know that a better field is already out there waiting for me. When I said, "I like black" and the Japanese teacher said, "I rike brack!", I didn't bother to correct him / her and I simply laughed louding inside me. I see nothing, absolutely nothing in even making an effort to change anything since the poor Japanese kids are simply too wild to learn any useful English. Look at it this way, these little brats reeked of urine, dirt and every other germ, virus, bacteria you can ever imagine, get together in an un-ventilated school with the heating running, pushed the same amount of dirt around each day pretending to clean the school and attend a 50 minute English classes 1 time a week. They are never gonna learn English no matter how hard they try and it's little wonder that the influenza virus spreads faster in Japanese schools.

Literally I give up try to improve or much less change anything in these Elementary schools. Of course the occasional unintended pun still cracks me up like the other day, the lesson was on cities in countries. One kid said, Tokyo, Japan and the other said Vancouver, Canada...then one smart ass kid screamed, "Bei Gi Na" which sounded crudely like a Japanese version of the female reproductive organ. Man, I swore I almost teared when I suppressed my laughter. He wanted to say Beijing China but somehow somewhere something went seriously wrong. That aside, like I have mentioned, I am pretty much done. I told the one teacher about the situation and told him the truth, that no matter how hard he can try or ANY of the Japanese teachers in the Elementary school can try, nothing's gonna change since nothing had changed in the last 50 years. He asked me what can be done to change and I told him specifically what MUST be done to change. He agreed but I could see the "impossible" look thru his eyes.

And today I come to school to experience a white out but it's not snow...it's irritating fog that resulted in the heavy rain overnight. Damn I am seriously being robbed of snow...all classes are cancelled today and tomolo's a holiday. I am really taking it easy while it last.

Gripes and hassles (not blad)

- Never Stop Dreaming -

I wished the gripes that I am experiencing are from a Hasselblad and not from just hassles. Apparently I took advantage of the strengthening Yen to do some online shopping and have some stuffs shipped over from US. And of course when these items arrive here in Japan, I am subjected to a certain Consumption Tax, which of course like the GST in SG, I am perfectly fine with it.

But before this strange ordeal (Edison Chen's famous quote), I really had no idea about how the whole Japanese Consumption Tax thing worked, much like I had absolutely no idea how the SG GST works as well. So far the story goes that I ran into some rather unexpected and unfortunate issues with the new items that I got from US. Might be a manufacturer's defect, might be something else but I DON'T know. Thru e-mail correspondences, I am granted an exchange for the product which to my utter horror before I mailed it out, have certain dubious Consumption Tax attached to it. T

From what I could dig from both the guys at the local post office and thru phone conversations with the girl at the sub-customs branch, it was clear that when an item FIRST comes into Japan, I will be levied the CONSUMPTION TAX which of course I had to pay to receive the item. But in the event of an exchange, I had to first get the item with the necessary invoices to a "nearby" office some 2 hour drive from my place, filled up some forms, produce my bank book and personal identification and wait an indefinite 3 weeks or more to have the paid tax refunded. Then when the replacement item of the exact nature be it size, length, weight, manufacturer's orgin, material, etc arrives, the VERY SAME CONSUMPTION TAX which I had paid, then get it refunded while waiting for it to be cleared, will be ONCE AGAIN levied on the replacement item and I have to pay it AGAIN before I can get the item.

Now, that's quite a lot of work, a lot of hassle, a lot of time, energy, man hours, man power WASTED to do the same thing over again! The policy is simply, stupid and ridiculous and basically ridicule the basis of productivity and efficiency. I am so sorry that you poor Japanese folks work longer than anyone else in the work but only to produce the same or sometimes less than everyone else.

Why the hell do I have to pay the same tax 2 times which I had to go thru the entire process to get the tax paid the first time refunded when we are clearly refering to the same item from the same manufacturer from the same shop? The documents the invoices the receits are all there...so I don't see any problem there. Anyway, I see it as a huge joke in the policy that they are using, even the girl at the sub-customs branch who spoke to me agreed that it's a hassle and very troublesome. It's no surprise that robots wasn't a part of them, it literally IS them since they do things without questioning, they just do it because they have to.

A good brand but an even better company

- Never Stop Dreaming -

Arc Teryx was a relatively unknown brand to me not because I was ignorant but simply because I am only experiencing my 3rd and ever winter. Then I found out that their LEAF line was even better. So after massive research on limited resources available on the net, I bit the bullet (tasted pretty bad!) and went ahead to cash out 500 dollars from my account.

The Jacket arrived in good faith and was pretty neat in the overall construction so I decided to put it to the test. Nothing too crazy but just simply putting it on and see how it fared in the winter. Greasy smoke stains this jacket pretty bad much worse than regular cotton clothes and airing it for days simply would not work. So into the washine machine it went to rid the stench. Unfortunately, this supposedly "tough", "durable" jacket took the first casualty status in my entire collection of outer shells. Somehow cheaper jackets lasted 3 years before signs of severe wear could be found and this new 500 dollars jacket, *sigh* failed in less than a week.

Somehow a single thread, a nylon got hooked, entangled or God knows how while in the washing machine. And this nylon was not from the seams but off the face of the Gore Tex fabric, the MI270 to be exact which was supposed to be abrasion proof. Questionable, definitely about the "durable", "abrasion proof!" part as seen in the picture...


So I corresponded with the company which I had bought the jacket, US ELITE GEAR, as to what options do I have to make this jacket work. They advised me not to repair the jacket and sent them the pictures for accessment. Apparently, from what they told me, Arc Teryx LEAF do not have an exchange policy for jackets which are washed. I waited for almost 2 weeks and the staffs at US Elite Gear still did not have any answers from Arc Teryx. Then one of the top representative of US Elite Gear decided to take this matter into his own hands and offered me an exchange.

I was definitely a very happy customer since the way this situation was being handled was in every way to make a customer satisfied. Though there were other stores out there offering the very same jacket at a much lower price, I was glad I bought it from US Elite Gear since their after sales service was very very good.

I would seriously recommend getting high end military spec gear from them since their shipping is very fast and their committed effort in helping me resolve this issue was one of the best I had ever experienced. Sadly such customer oriented service would be more like a myth in good o' SG where the PRCs have overrun the years of uneffective "courtesy" and social graciousness campaigns. Thumbs up for US ELITE GEAR...

They are hibernating in the cold

- Never Stop Dreaming -

It has been almost 2 months into the new year and yet I haven't posted any pictures...not because I have not been taking them but they are all now hosted on different sites. And to my huge astonishment, GEOCITIES which used to be hosted on Yahoo's servers shut down without me know it. They didn't even send me an email to inform me...bloody idiots and utter shitty SLA that that practice. Now all my files are spoofed thanks to a bunch of deserved-to-be-shot capitalists scumbags!

All that angst aside, here are some of the pics...


Found a nice abandoned warehouse near my place and decided to play with the umbrella and 2 strobes. I was all alone so to do everything like checking the positioning of the strobes and umbrella, etc was quite a hassle. Takes time but can be done unless someone volunteers to be my model/assistant. Not bad I would say...and though I hate to admit, I used to be the ugly duckling but now I simply love to see myself time and again that is if I do manage to pull of shots that I like.


This one was shot while I was going home one day and I simply couldn't resist the full moon reflecting of the river below the bridge. The actual scene was much more beautiful than I could capture on the camera. Though I have ventured exclusively to framing people, time and again, I just couldn't resist such temptations.



A while back like in the second week of Jan where I said I was going to Hakuba, yeah these are the pictures of the little cottages in the snow forest like a page outta of the Grimm Bros' tales. I guessed the pictures deliver a more descriptive scene than the words.


And this was the road that leads to the sleepy forest in the Grimm Bros' tales...


My "new" RC toy car which battled 1 snow storm to get me to Hakuba. This menacing under 700cc full 5 speed manual monster was one fast 4WD toy car. No clutch slip was more than enuff to make up the slow 1st gear acceleration. Nonetheless, I have found a new home for this baby in the hands of a female friend in about 5 weeks time. The reason was because of THE STRAWBERRY!



The party on the Friday night at Hakuba was not bad at all and I decided to the 5D partnered with a F1.4 looking glass in extreme low light to see what I could get. People in a dark atmosphere just the way I like it.


Still on the Hakuba series, these are some of the most amazing crew from Australia though I only met them like only once. They are friends of N which of course was simply too amazing to begin with. Just had to expand the last remaining frames on the long overdue B/W film.


The Man, another fellow photographer, proposed to his lovely angel on the top of one of the ski resorts under a huge bell. Yeah I am envious but I give this man all the respect because he was, is and will be as awesome as he already is. His girl is now a proud owner of a huge polished piece of carbon.


So once again a good lens food for me, the lovely newly engaged love birds!




And before leaving, the last remaining memories of the fantastic Hakuba...